[Ads-l] stock market saying?

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

Good question, Jim, and excellent searching, John. The Economist
probably picked up the saying from Newsweek. Fred's essential
reference "The Yale Book of Quotations" has the following illuminating
entry:

[Begin excerpt]
Paul A. Samuelson
U.S. economist, 1915-

Wall Street indexes predicted nine out of the last five recessions.
Newsweek, 19 Sept. 1966
[End excerpt]

Here are some more details and a longer excerpt.

Date: September 19, 1966
Periodical: Newsweek
Article: Science and Stocks
Author: Paul Samuelson
Quote Page 92
Database: Google Books snippet; citation data from GB, YBQ, and from
"Spiraling Downward: Thinking About and Planning for Economic
Collapse" (2013) by Peter Damaris

[Begin excerpt]
To prove that Wall Street is an early omen of movements still to come
in GNP, commentators quote economic studies alleging that market
downturns predicted four out of the last five recessions. That is an
understatement. Wall Street indexes predicted nine out of the last
five recessions! And its mistakes were beauties.
[End excerpt]

Garson


On Tue, Feb 14, 2017 at 10:28 AM, Baker, John <JBAKER at stradley.com> wrote:
> It is a stock market saying, but usually given in somewhat different form.  Newspapers.com has it from the Abilene Reporter-News (Dec. 1, 1966), plus 93 more hits since then, in this form:
>
> <<"One economist, according to the London Economist, chides those who say the market has predicted four out of the last five recessions for being too modest.
> "'The market,' he says, 'has predicted nine of the last five recessions.'"
> You don't hardly get a better percentage than that.>>
>
> I don't have access to the Economist from that period, but that may be the original of the saying.  Sometimes it's used to denigrate economists or economic indices rather than the predictive power of the stock market.
>
>
> John Baker
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of James A. Landau
> Sent: Tuesday, February 14, 2017 10:01 AM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: stock market saying?
>
> http://seekingalpha.com/article/4045499-kinder-morgan-cares-trans-mountain-pipeline-expansion-cancelled?ifp=0
>
> <quote>
> I grew up hearing the saying that "the market is nervous enough to have predicted 11 of the last seven recessions."
> </quote>
>
> - Jim Landau
>
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